The final working meeting of the Plan Bothnia project (MSP5) for partners and process participants will be held 19.-21. March in Vasa, Finland. The dates and venue enable some interaction and joint sessions with the SeaGis project participants and guests- who will have a meeting at the same time (20.-21 March) and place.

The specific objective of this concluding fifth meeting is to finalise the project output, a pilot MSP plan suggestion as well as the final report publication, based on final drafts submitted to the meeting. The two first days (19. & 20.) will centre on the final pilot plan. The last day (21.) will be focused on finalising the project publication and is mainly intended for authors and project partners enabling agreement on final output.

Wednesday and Thursday this week the Plan Bothnia project had its fourth planning meeting (MSP4) in Stockholm, Sweden (conference centre “Piperska Muren”). The meeting took an in-depth look at the draft material produced by project participants.

The discussions centered around similarities and differences between two documents including material for the Plan Bothnia MSP plan, one from a group of Finnish participants and another from a group of Swedish participants. These inspiring documents provided the first glimpses of what the Plan Bothnia MSP plan could look like. The material included suggestions for both the plan map as well as related text. These documents and other meeting material is available at the appropriate folder of the project document library.

Pål Karlsson and Anne Savola presenting draft plan material

The interesting discussions at MSP4 concluded that even if there are some differences in approaches these are relatively minor. As steps toward a joint proposal the meeting agreed on the first outline of the plan part of the final report, as well as a drafts of typology/map legend. The outcome of the meeting will be available Friday 3 February at the project document library along with other meeting documents.

Intersessional work before the next planning meeting (MSP5), to be held 19.-21. March will prepare a complete plan draft for the Final report to be released at the Final conference (s) to be organised during the period 22.-23. May 2012, in conjunction of the European Maritime Day 2012 (Gothenburg, Sweden).

After a refreshing pause we are now preparing for our next working meeting, Plan Bothnia MSP4, to be held in Stockholm, Sweden 25-26 January 2012. The aim of this meeting is to look at available material, including concrete plan drafts, and develop them further for the final report. The meeting material is available from the document library.

After this Stockholm meeting we still have at least one working meeting (MSP5) which has been proposed to be held in March 2012, possibly between 21st-22nd in Finland -but subject to decision at MSP4 [nb. final dates and venue confirmed 15.2.2012 are 19.-21 March in Vasa]. Possibly one more working meeting will be arranged if necessary.

In addition, there will be a public Plan Bothnia event on 6 February 2012 (11:00-17:00) in Riga, Latvia (Monika Centrum Hotels, meeting room “Glory”, Elizabetes street 21, Riga) organised by Projet Partner VASAB. The event will be geared toward wider Baltic participants and is organised in conjunction with the HELCOM-VASAB MSP WG meeting taking place in Riga 7.-8. February 2012. Please find programme here.

Our final event will then be in Gothenburg, Sweden in conjunction with the European Maritime Day (21.-22. May 2012).

Yesterday and today (15.-16.12) we have worked in a small but productive group in Helsinki to prepare for our next planning meeting (MSP4, 25.&26.1.2012). The participants included Pål Karlsson from Boverket, Annukka Pekkarinen, Mirja Rasi and Sari Repka from the Centre for Maritime Studies, Tiina Tihlman from the MoE Finland, Sirkka Lehto and Anne Savola from the Satakunta Regional Council as well as Hermanni Backer and Manuel Frias from HELCOM.

Refreshments for hard working planners!

Before and during the meeting our rich background material has been reshaped to what starts to resemble a final assessment document draft. A final draft will be submitted to the MSP4 meeting in Stockholm and the finished product later to the EU commission (February 2012). As Edward Tufte would put it: we are working to increase our data-ink ratio.

Besides the background document we have also taken a look and discussed an initial sketch for a regional MSP plan recently drafted by Sirkka and Anne- a fantastic initiative in itself! More such drafting will take place during the next MSP 4 meeting 25 & 26 january 2012.

Last week Wednesday and Thursday (October 19. & 20.) the Plan Bothnia project organised its third MSP planning meeting (Plan Bothnia MSP3). Over thirty participants from regional and national authorities in Sweden and Finland attended the meeting hosted by the project lead partner HELCOM Secretariat (Helsinki, Finland). The participants had available map and text material pre-compiled by the Plan Bothnia partners on the different human activities and natural features.

Armed by maps, pens and transparent paper the participants filled the HELCOM office with creativity and enthusiasm. During the two days the participants worked hands-on in groups divided according to the different activities taking place in the Bothnian Sea. This work contributed to finalising a set of interest maps for planning purposes. The final results will be made available through the project map service as well as the Bothnian Sea MSP Assessment to be submitted to EU Commission (DG MARE) by February 2012.

The final interest maps, alongside background maps on physical features and various sectoral targets/objectives, will be the necessary material for the process of drafting MSP plans to be drafted during remaining 2011. Results will be submitted to the next MSP meeting, to take place 25.-26. January in Sweden, further details of which will be announced later.

The MSP 3 meeting in Helsinki provided for intensive discussions as well as new insights into the activities and interactions taking place in the planning area. Especially many interactions seem to take place in the banks area in the South-West (Swedish waters), South-East part along the Finnish and Åland coast, as well as within the two Quarks in the northern and southern extremity of the basin. The activities within these areas require particularly close scruting.

In September 27th the Project held also an open dissemination event attended by nearly thirty interested participants from seven different Baltic Sea countries. The participants were presented the present status and achievements of the project. This included the map service and the collected GIS data as well as the consultancy study on MSP best practices and minimum requirements presently under drafting by Mr. Jacek Zaucha and Mr. Bernhard Heindrichs.

These two meetings have worked as important milestones and created solid ground for the final phase of the project, focusing on drafting a Plan Bothnia MSP plan. This will enroll during the remaining seven months of the project. The excitement is really getting denser and the project products more beautiful… so it is worth to keep tuned to Plan Bothnia!

We have been from Monday to Wednesday in Nordregio office in Stockholm preparing our 3rd Plan Bothnia meeting which will take place on 19 – 20 October.

The main idea with this meeting was to reorganize our assessment document which is a compilation of activities and interests, and the related geodata, on the Bothnian Sea. This assessment will be the base to make a test plan on the area.

Thanks to all and specially to Nordregio for letting us use the facilities.